Arnold Schwarzenegger on Health Care

Republican CA Governor

Discount drugs to 6 million low-income Californians

In 2006, a bill [proposed] to provide healthcare to all children throughout the state. It soon ran into a number of obstacles--thanks in large part to the drug companies, which had provided hundreds of thousands to Arnold's election campaign and retained
considerable influence. Yet Arnold forged an impressive deal with the Democrats to provide discount drugs to 6 million low-income Californians. It was a bill he himself had blocked for nearly three years and another sign of the post-partisan era.

Source: The Governator, by Ian Halperin, p.297
, Oct 12, 2010

Co-led effort against child obesity with Bill Clinton

Today, 12.5 million American children are obese, an additional 13 million are overweight, and more and more of them are developing problems normally found only in adults--high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to heart
attacks, strokes, blindness, and loss of limbs. If childhood obesity continues to increase, this young generation could be the first in American history to have shorter lives than their parents. To get the Alliance for a Healthier Generation off to a goo
start, I asked the Republican governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, to co-lead the effort with me because I wanted an inclusive, nonpartisan effort; because he had implemented a good child-health program in his state; and because he was a great example: h
lost 110 pounds, got off his diabetes medicine, and ran his first marathon at age forty-nine. After Huckabee left office, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also has aggressively tackled the childhood obesity issue, became the Alliance co-leader.

Froze enrollment in Healthy Families program

Arnold Schwarzenegger as candidate said, “We have to make sure that every child in California is insured. That is the most important thing. I’m very passionate about children’s issues.
It is very important because they cannot fend for themselves. The children, we have a Healthy Families program here in California, and it is a very, very good program.” (Gubernatorial debate, CSU Sacramento, September 24, 2003)

[Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor] actually proposed freezing enrollment in the “very, very good” Healthy Families program, a move that will force as many as 100,000 children to go without health insurance
-in a state where one in seven children is already uninsured.

Market competitions and reduced costs improve health care

We need as many companies bidding so that the prices coming down and make it available. We have a really a crisis here with our health insurance companies with our businesses because they’re overburdened as it is right now with worker’s compensation &
with Med-Cal. They are much higher than anywhere in the nation. They cannot afford it [which could result in] no jobs, no businesses, & no health care. What we have to do right now is protect the businesses and protect the people so that they have jobs.

Source: Recall Debate, Cal. State Univ. at Sacramento
, Sep 24, 2003

Must insure the low-income families, especially the children

It’s important that we take care of our children. We have to make sure that every child in California is insured. I’m very passionate about children’s issues. We have to take care of our children and our seniors [because] they cannot fend for themselves.
The children, we have a Healthy Family Program here in California. It’s a very, very good program. It’s supposed to insure people to get health care, for children and also for their parents if they’re low-income people. The only problem with the program
right now is only 2/3 of the people that are eligible are not having that health care. And because the government has not done a good job of reaching out and finding the people and letting them know to sign up and to find easy ways for them to sign up.
And so that is really terrible. I will immediately go out there and promote it, and market it and get it out there, so everyone knows about it and everyone signs up, because we must insure our families, the low-income families, especially the children.

Support telemedicine for underserved areas.

H.R. 2706, The Medicare Telehealth Validation (MTV) Act. Republican Main Street Partnership members Congressman Doug Ose (CA) and Jo Ann Emerson (MO) have introduced this bill to increase the use of telehealth services under the Medicare program. Currently, telehealth services are restricted to use in certain geographically underserved areas. The MTV Act provides sufficient funding and regulatory relief to expand high technology medical diagnostic tools, across the Internet, to urban as well as rural underserved areas. The bill further provides for expansion of store-and-forward techniques, and for a study of the restrictions on telemedicine due to state licensing rules.

$350 billion for prescriptions for poor seniors.

Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit One of issues to be addressed this year by Congress is that of providing a prescription drug benefit to our nation's Medicare beneficiaries. Legislation currently being drafted [by Republican Main Street Partnership members] intends to authorize $350 billion over the next 10 years to provide purchasing assistance for prescription medications. The benefit reaches out to low and moderate income seniors by extending coverage to incomes up to 150% of the poverty level. The bill could also include provisions to correct reimbursement reductions for physicians, nurses, hospitals, technicians, home health care providers, and long-term care facilities.

3.2% funding increase for National Institutes of Health.

Schwarzenegger signed Letter from 24 Governors to leaders in Congress

NIH, as well as the indirect job benefits of laboratories needing space, supplies, services, and equipment. We are also deeply aware that NIH-funded discoveries are the basis of new companies and even new industries in our communities.

NIH research is an instrumental part of the success of the US life sciences industry and its 6 million high-wage US jobs. Moreover, follow-on life science research advances are now stimulating new jobs and new solutions in green energy, agriculture, the environment and industrial manufacturing. NIH funding enables the scientific talent and discoveries that are at the heart of this vast array of economic activity.

As you develop the Congressional Budget Resolution, we urge you to enable the 3.2% funding increase for NIH contained in the President's budget request.
We thank you for your past support for biomedical research and ask you to craft a budget resolution that accommodates the President's $32.2 billion FY 2011 NIH budget request.

The greatest contribution NIH makes is to the health and well-being of Americans. Past federal investments in medical research, combined with those from the private sector, have led to improved health, better quality of life, and improved productivity of millions of patients and their families.

But NIH is also an important national, regional, and local economic engine. Together, our states received more than $19 billion from the NIH last year for promising research efforts. NIH funding directly supports 350,000 jobs across the US. In our states, we see firsthand the world class research institutions and scientific teams enabled by